Crib Recall

My sitter told me there was a huge crib recall that affected millions of parents. I don't get the paper and didn't see anything in the headlines this morning, so I needed to make sure the word got out! Without her, I would have never known.

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Stork Craft is recalling 2.1 million (yes, that's a LOT) drop-side cribs. The recall was prompted by 110 drop-side detatchments. The drop-side rail detatchment leaves an opening large enough for an infant to become entrapped and has lead to 4 suffocations.

Major retailers in the United States and Canada sold the recalled cribs including BJ’s Wholesale Club, J.C. Penney, Kmart, Meijer, Sears, USA Baby, and Wal-Mart stores and online at Amazon.com, Babiesrus.com, Costco.com, Target.com, and Walmart.com from January 1993 through October 2009 for between $100 and $400.

Please visit the US CPSC or Stork Craft's website for more information.

Help spread the word! There are so many other things to worry about as a new parent, don't let your baby's crib add to them!

Totally "Ticks" Me Off!

You may recall my post "Ten Years Without Sleep." This is the post that summarized my years of weird sleepiness and general lack of well being and yuckiness. Thursday of last week I finally had enough. I was sick of walking into work like a damn zombie everyday. I called and made an appointment and told the office that it was urgent. I got a slew of blood drawn. It seriously looked like a pint if you poured all of those little tubes into one big jug. My doctor is always booked so I saw her nurse practitioner. She's good and just the same as seeing a doctor. This nurse seriously thinks I'm a hypochondriac. I have "medically unexplained" fatigue and all of these cognitive malfunctions. Trouble with my short term memory, difficutly concentrating, unexplained back pains. In my previous post I explained how she thought it was all stress, doing too much, blah blah blah. Now I know what the cause is and my nurse practitioner who thought I was a hypochondriac can shove it.

I have freakin Lyme Disease! EW! My first thought of this is freakin nasty. (Freakin is the word of the day because it's more polite than dropping f-bombs and a great adjective to demonstrate how I feel). You have to be bitten by a damn tick to get this disease. How the F would that happen? I make a ridiculously conscious effort to avoid bugs at all costs. Seriously. I used to be such a tom boy until I realized that bugs can bite you and for this exact freaking reason, I avoided them! Ew. I had a tick on me. And it bit me... ewwwwwwwwwww OMG. I'm so nasty. I can't believe it.

Anyway, the nurse said it looks like my body has been fighting this for quite some time because I have antibodies in my blood. Again, ew. So now I have to go back in for more bloodwork because she thinks there's something else going on too. Ha! I'm not a freakin hypochondriac! See- I knew something was going on! I guess I'm kind of relieved we found something. Is that weird? It's not that I want to be "sick," I'm just glad we have something to treat. I read that most people who undergo the IV antibiotic treatment get relief from their chronic fatigue. Woo hoo!

Yeah, I'm still disgusted that I appear to have been bitten by a freakin tick. EEEEWWWWW! Now do you get the irony of why I joined "Totally Ticks Me Off Tuesday?" That's freakin gross! Someone tell me that I'm not a nasty person because I had a freakin tick on me?!?!! Off to the doctor I go for more bloodwork. Oh joy...

Random Thoughts Tuesday

I visited Momspective today to read her random thoughts. They were very random and I enjoyed the randomness so much I thought I'd partake. Sinc e I seem to be scraping for inspiration lately on just about everything, these blog/Twitter nuances really help me find some material! The baby's napping so I'm unwinding now and will let my ADD run wild for a few minutes. Enjoy!

At the beginning of this post I accidentally titled it "Random Thoughts Thursday." Then I was sad that it's not Thursday, it's only Tuesday :( I've been working a lot lately. Going in early, coming home late, working from home. I'm not complaining, I guess it's good job security (which we all need right now). The baby was sleeping when I came home. Is it bad of me to hope that he sleeps just a little longer? I miss him, I want to play with him, but right now I just need to chill. *Enter loud clap of thunder* yeah, rain. Thanks for that... please don't wake the baby!

I just need a "me" day. I'm so busy doing things for and with everyone else, I don't have enough time to just be by myself, enjoying what I like to do. Every weekend is jam packed with action from wedding showers and grad parties to mud volleyball and getting together with friends. I love the time I get to spend when I'm with my family and friends. We're always laughing and having a good time but by Sunday night, I'm ready for a night off. Not only does it exhaust me, it gets my little guy off his routine.

I feel like I've been really lax on the routine thing lately. Bed time has been about the same, same meal time... I guess everything has been right on schedule. It just feels like I'm rushing through the days just to get them over with because I want to get to that one day off! I need to schedule a day. Just. For. Me. Mani, pedi, shop, layout in the sun, maybe get my haircut. An all day Mad Mom pamper-a-thon... wait... I have pamper-a-thons everyday... I mean an all day Mad Mom Indugle-fest! My husband wonders why I take such loooong showers. Well, that's the only place I get to be alone. Sure I drive home from work by myself. That doesn't count because there are all kinds of crazy a-holes on the road trying to make me spew out curse words. The shower is quiet. The sound of the water is relaxing. I can just veg.

Speaking of veg, I haven't been eating many veggies lately. That probably attributes to the fact that I feel so run down. You know that feeling like you're just weighed down by all the processed crap you eat all the time? That's the one. Maybe if I make time for more veggies, I'll feel a little lighter... if only it were that easy. If I ate more veggies, that'd mean I'd probably have to cook them and make something else to eat them with... I like to cook but my counter space consists of about 3 square feet. Not chef friendly.

Well, this post could be about five times longer, but I'll spare your eyeballs from having to read all that... and make you beg for more by stopping here! Don't worry. I have plenty of random thoughts to last me the life of this blog...

...and the baby just got up...

Still Nothing?

After two weeks of waiting... still not sleep study results. I called the doctor's office today to find out if I could get in for a follow up and guess what. The next available appointment isn't until OCTOBER!!!! What's the point of that?

I feel like such a hypochondriac. I'm constantly on the web diagnosing myself with all kinds of weird diseases. It's not that I want something to be wrong with me... I just want be to able to treat me sleepiness. It's not normal. No healthy 25 year old should be so extremely exhausted for no reason. When I went to the doctor about a year and a half ago, she said that we may need to think outside the box as far as diagnoses go. Then she said the word (or acronym) MS. Severe fatigue along with some of my other symptoms could point toward Multiple Sclerosis. These other symptoms are pretty annoying and I did't think anything of it until she uttered those words... Clumsiness, running into things, not being able to speak properly... those are all some early signs. I felt like sometimes my tongue was too lazy to say my name properly. It was very weird. I'd have this painful tingly sensation in my arm - nothing made it better but it eventually went away. These things come and go... But she mentioned that over a year ago and who knows where my medical dilemma will lead me to next. All I know is that I'm ready to think outside the box!

Looks like I may go another 10 years without sleep.

10 Years Without Sleep

I have been waiting for this night for 10 years. The night when I sleep at a hotel, all expenses paid, courtesy of my medical insurance. Sounds great, right? Not quite. The reason for this all-inclusive stay-cation is because I've been tired for 10 years.



At first, the doctors said it was sinuses so they gave me a magical spray to spritz up my nose with the hope that my nasal passages would shrink and I'd be able to breathe. That obviously didn't work. Flash forward a couple years and I begin having sever fatigue. So severe that I'd nearly fall asleep in the middle of a conversation with friends at school. "Wow, you really are tired," they'd say as my eyes tried to close and my head jerked back up as if someone yanked me by the ponytail. The fatigue only worsened as my senior year of high school progressed. Where I went to high school, the cool kids got good grades and "overachieved." And there I was falling asleep every chance I got. I almost felt like a narcoleptic but I knew that wasn't the case as there are some different symptoms. It's hard enough to be in high school. It was as if I were falling in with the wrong crowd and partying all night long only to come to school without my homework done and snooze in 7 different rooms a day. That's how I learned the word haggard.

My english teacher called my mom and the questions any concerned teacher would. I wasn't meeting my potential, are there problems at home, is she getting in with a bad crowd? Nope, none of the above. When my mom told me he said I looked haggard, I was SO insulted but only because for some reason this 12 grader taking College Prep English didn't know what the word meant. I was a cheerleader (not the rah-rah type, but a competitive, trophy winning type) and every day I'd come home from school, sleep, go to practice or a game, sleep, go to school the next day and repeat the vicious cycle.

Eventually the falling asleep mid-sentence faded and I just became used to being very tired. I'd sleep for 10-11 hours and have to force myself out of bed. My next shot at getting a diagnosis was a few years ago. I was married, working full time and a full time college student. Even though the problem had been going on for quite some time, they said "you're stressed" and that was that. I was to wait until I graduated from college and had less on my plate to ever feel rested again. This would be understandable if my sleeping pattern had suddenly changed after I took on all these challenges in my life but it didn't. This had been going on far too long to attribute it to stress. Then came the baby... "wait till he's older, then you'll feel better." Again, this would be true if my baby didn't sleep through the night like a little angel since 4 weeks of age.

Now I've graduated from college, make sure I get 7-8 hours of sleep per night, don't have any major stressors in my life to cause me to be so tired. I finally get a sleep study. My mother was diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago. I'm convinced that I too suffer from something similar. My family used to tell me that I snore like a freight train.. that was a real confidence booster. Snoring is one of the many symptoms among other things like waking up thinking "why am I holding my breath right now? That's weird..."

Is it bad for me to secretly hope that when my results come back there's something actually wrong with me? I will be so upset if I come back and they say "everything's normal, you're just tired." I'm hoping there's a reason behind my years and years of fatigue so I can get treatment and wake up one day feeling refreshed. A refreshed feeling in the morning is something so rare to me that I can remember the exact date it last happened: December 9, 2007. That was a year and a half ago. Before then, I couldn't even tell you...

Wish me luck tonight. Hopefully in the next 10-15 business days I'll be linking back to this post talking about how I'm so happy to finally have answers!

Good night~

Sleeping Like a Baby?

I don't know how that saying came about. Further more, I don't know how that saying came to meant "sleeping well." Babies don't sleep well. They're awake crying for more food every two hours or so... So, how can that be even classified as rest?

Lack of sleep is one of the hardest things to get used to as a new parent. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to have a husband who takes turns with me getting up with the little guy. I was also very fortunate that my baby slept through the night at 4 weeks (one of the perks to pushing an 11 pound watermelon out of your tiny vag hole).

I suppose that saying came from the fact that when a baby falls asleep (or at least mine anyway) it would take a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant to wake them up. I could do anything but put an ice cold wipe on my baby's butt and he still wouldn't wake up. And there were times when that was necessary. What a wake up call!

Sleep deprivation is a common cause in feelings of depression and moodiness. Imagine that... Among the other pressures of being a new mom, sleeping for just two hours at a time only adds to those feelings. Here's a great resource for sleep cycles and being a new mom. I'm sure you'll read this with the same "No sh*t!" attitude that I did. Did they really need to do a study to tell us that we are more irritable and not as nice to our families when we're tired? Really?

Here are my little tips to dealing with your sleep deprivation:

• Swaddle! This saved our lives when it came to bed time! We couldn't figure out why the baby would fall asleep and sleep well (through the night) only in his car seat. Turns out, he just wanted the close and secure feeling of being swaddled. The instant we started doing this, he would go right to sleep and not wake up until the morning.
• Get into a routine. One of our biggest downfalls was the lack of any kind of routine. We'd just let him fall asleep whenever. This makes it very difficult for the baby to get used to going to bed and knowing that it's time to sleep. For your sanity and the baby's wellbeing, make a routine for bedtime. A bath, ba ba, then rocking him for a few minutes before putting him into the crib was just enough of a routine for him to get used to the idea that bedtime means sleep time.
• Make sure the last bottle is right before bed. If not, be prepared to get up at 4 a.m. (that is if your baby normally sleeps through).
• Night time feedings are a great time to bond. So for all of those months of 3 a.m. feedings ahead you, just get over it and be happy. This should be routine too. The HARDEST part is trying not to play! My baby would just want to play and be happy, but 3 a.m. was not play time. I'd get him up, change his diaper, give him his bottle and rock him. Even when he wanted to play. I had to resist!
• Take turns with your partner. If you're married or living with a great supporter (boyfriend, mom, friend, whatever) try taking turns everyother night when your little one wants to eat. This will allow you to at least try to get a full nights' sleep. It's hard to get used to at first. You'll hear his cry and want to see what's wrong and comfort him. But once you get used to it, you'll appreciate every minute of sleep you can get!

These tips are just from an experienced mom. So please don't think I'm Dr. Mom Health PhD. Use these as friendly advice. If something doesn't work for your baby, try something new. What I've learned about parenting thus far is that it's all trial and error...

Happy Sleeping!